HUNTING WEST TEXAS 2010: Taxidermist offer tips to perserve harvest

You have just taken your first trophy buck. You would like to get it mounted and have the hide tanned. But what do you do? Two local professionals offered a few tips for getting your harvest from the field to the taxidermist shop.

The first tip involves distance. If you are close to your favorite taxidermist shop, get the animal to the business ASAP or get it into a cooler. Heat and moisture, according to Jimmy Fontenot from Safari Studios (Taxidermy), are the culprits that harm the hide of game animals. "Wipe off any moisture, any blood and, if the animal is already skinned, cool the hide down," said Fontenot.

If you do skin and quarter the animal in the field, do yourself a favor and think about what you want done before you start. Want a shoulder mount? Think about what you want the final product to look like. I've always heard taxidermists say, "Leave plenty of hide and don't make any cuts where you don't have to." Others have said, "Don't cut into the brisket area, leave several inches behind the legs and roll the hide out." Again, cool the hide down when your job is complete. (I've seen antlers sticking out of heavy plastic bags or the top of large Styrofoam ice chests, the head and hide cooling down inside.)

One of the most beautiful mounts I've ever seen was two Rio Grande turkey fanned and facing each other. Your big gobbler should be brought in whole, immediately, or, if you are a good distance away, frozen whole for transport later.

What if you take a big game animal (mule deer, elk, moose, etc.) and are a long distance away? In far West Texas, or New Mexico or Colorado…

We had that situation two years ago when a friend took his first elk with a bow in Colorado. The bull was more than a mile from any road and we had to use backpacks to get it out. The large animal was already skinned, quartered and de-boned by the time we got back to camp. (Someone had also gone to get dry ice while we brought the venison, head and hide off the mountain and back to the ATVs.) Luckily we had phone service so we called Henry Dusek at Old Friends Taxidermy to make sure we did things right.

"Don't just roll the hide into a ball and put it in an ice chest. This lets the body heat stay inside while the outer hide insulates it from the cold. Lay it out and let it cool first," said Dusek. We only had table salt but we salted the hide and laid it out to cool. We finally froze it inside an ice chest with the dry ice. (Be careful with dry ice; educate yourself about it before you use it.)

Luckily we had left a good bit of extra hide in caping out my friend's elk. As the taxidermist stressed, "It takes more hide than one might think to produce a shoulder mount of one of the bigger animals taken in the Rockies."

Now I'll share how we sealed the cold inside for the 750-mile trip home. Several bags of ice were placed on the bottom of each ice chest. (Ice still inside the plastic bags.) The cooled venison and the hide were placed on top inside the 120–150 quart containers. Several pounds of dry ice, inside paper sacks, were placed on top of the meat and hide. Gray tape was used to seal the outside edge of the top to the bottom. Moving blankets and then tarps were wrapped around each ice chest. Ropes were finally used to secure everything together.

Hopefully this information will help you because deer season will be here before we know it. But you do have one great advantage today. You have time to plan ahead before you pull the trigger or release the arrow. You have time to get to know one of the many taxidermists in our West Texas area. You have time to learn about proper skinning methods and care before you go hunting. And if everything fails, keep a cell phone handy so you can call a professional and let him guide you through it.